Exclusive Q&A With Delon De Metz
Delon de Metz is an actor on the TV show The Bold and the Beautiful. He portrays Zende, the charismatic, handsome and talented grandson of the Forrester patriarch, Eric Forrester. De Metz's acting career has spanned theater, film and television. His recent credits include Netflix's The Kominsky Method as well as CBS's NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Zoo and Scorpion.
Q. When did your interest for acting first begin?
A. I always loved movies, but my interest in pursuing acting as a career didn't start until my mother sent me to take acting lessons with a coach named Susan Batson during my sophomore summer in high school. Apparently my mom didn't have much interest in my pursuing acting as a career either - she told me the classes would be good prep for college interviews a few years down the line. After going to my first lesson - somewhat begrudgingly - I was hooked.
Q. Did growing up in New York City relate to your passion for acting? Can you speak about any thread between childhood and now?
A. I lived in the cinema. I can't remember a weekend I wasn't at the movies through all of middle and high school. It didn't matter what was out or what the reviews were; I was always there. There are some NYC movies that definitely influenced my love of performing, specifically American Psycho, Cruel Intentions, Zoolander, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My friends and I would speak almost exclusively in American Psycho and Zoolander quotes through high school.
Q. How did your time at Harvard play into that story?
A. Well I studied economics, and for a while it seemed like finance would be my path, but I kept performing in school on-camera and theatrical productions. During the summers I would always make time to be in acting class at night back in NYC, and at some point - probably during the summer after sophomore year in college - I got an agent in New York.
By the end of senior year I arranged my schedule so that my mandatory sections were all held during two days of the week - I think it might have been Tuesday and Wednesday - and Wednesday afternoons I would hop on the train to New York and spend Thursday to Monday taking acting classes, auditioning, and clubbing. My friends back on campus would joke that they only saw me with a suitcase the last few years at Harvard.
Q. What motivated you to pursue acting full-time after college?
A. It was a tough decision, I had some offers from investment banks and hedge funds etc, but one of my friends - who was working in the mail room at a management company in Los Angeles called 3 Arts - called me, asked if I was considering pursuing acting at the professional level and offered to represent me in LA. After she mentioned that Power Rangers was casting and she could get me an audition, I turned down the finance offers and packed my bags. I didn't get cast on the team that season, but I ended up being offered a role on the show a year or two later . . . that's a story for another time.